Why are some gender critical feminists praising Rod Liddle?

[Mouldemort]

Can anyone give any insight into why gender critical stalwarts such as Kathleen Stock, Julie Bindel and Rosie Duffield are praising Rod Liddle? He was a wife-beating misogynist who argued that it shouldn't be a crime to look at images of child abuse.

It could be they are excusing his behaviour because he was personally nice to them, but honestly I am not sure.

https://x.com/Docstockk/status/2084268019270684830

Your bingo card is almost full there and it's not even 8.30am.

The article that was quoted upthread said (regardless of your stance on whether you think it was a joke or not) said
"I don't think I'd have dabbled much below year 10"
That's not 17 - 18 year olds.
That's 14 - 15 year olds.

Absolute twaddle and bullshit from top to bottom.

It encourages regressive 'feminine' stereotypes by policing our appearance

It's been used very successfully to stop all kinds of independence and rights campaigns
Edited to say this was meant to quote transphobia is a tool used by the right to divide the left instead of the above sentence about independence and rights campaigns

And does nothing whatsoever to help cis women. Just damages us

I think they're fair points actually.
although awaits people completely ignoring everything that's said just because they don't like the word cis

With so much nonsense there, it’s hard to know where to start. We were talking, in case you forgot, about a handful of women paying their respects following the death of a man they knew. That’s it.

However this puzzles me.

It promotes the idea that male violence is inevitable and can only be ameliorated by avoiding men. It enforces segregation of the sexes, trivialises CSA and says men will always be superior to women. Even at chess and quiz shows.

Are you suggesting that TRAs are fighting for the end of any ‘segregation’ (your word) of the sexes? That would certainly be news to those who want transwomen included in women’s categories. Or was it more an acknowledgment that transwomen are indeed men?

Its honest at least. Genderism proposes all sex segregation be abolished.

We all know which sex would be harmed by this.

I get the impression that the genderists are not at one over this.

There are the sort who want to blur all distinctions and have an apparently sexless, gender-fluid kind of world.

And there are the other sort who are all for sex segregated places and activities and exaggeratedly gendered appearances - so long as a privileged minority (including themself, of course) gets to transgress the boundaries.

He openly admitted his sexual attraction to children, and passionately believed that child sexual abuse material should be legalised. i.e. he was a paedophile, although of course there is no evidence that he acted on his impulses.

But apparently he was a jolly good chap that believed in womens' rights.

People will persist in posting absolute bollocks.

Have you taken this up with the Guardian?

Scoldemort, King of the Scolders, has the ability to post more than once in the thread.

No - should I?

Rod understood that the mob was a danger, not something to kowtow to. We both shared an aversion to cancel culture, organised and performative outrage. He knew that the moment a writer begins tailoring his thoughts to please online critics, the critics have won.

Rod’s response to the online mob is one which, even in death, we must remember. The usual ghouls, the types who celebrated the deaths of Margaret Thatcher and Ann Widdecombe, have come out again to tell us what a terrible person Rod was. And, of course, he was a deeply flawed man. But he mattered. He mattered because he made people think, laugh, get angry and argue. The minnows attacking him after his death merely demonstrate his significance. They must be ignored as we focus on the passing of one of the greats.

Kemi in the Spectator

Yes, if you think his article promoted paedophilia.

If someone was a terrible person alive why should they be less terrible when dead?

Anyone who views images of someone being raped - of whatever age- isn't using pornography. They're contributing to the person's abuse.

And it isn't virtue signalling to point that out. Rape is not sex. Anyone viewing it condones, celebrates and is complicit in violence.

I would really like the term 'child pronography' banned. It sanitises what the material actually is: life-destroying, violent abuse of children.

Anyone who views it fuels its creation, and is actively harming kids. Liddle absolutely knew that.

Because the people witnessing the abuse directed at the bad person is not the bad person, it's their friends and family. They are already suffering, it's not humane to desire to make them suffer more in their grief. There's something quite ghoulish about trying to vilify the dead. There's different levels of bad behaviour, but to some people who engage in black and white thinking it's all or nothing. The person was either good or bad, and if they were bad, they were as bad as Hitler. One can only assume these people have never done anything bad in their lives and are perfect angels, otherwise by their own rules they are literally Hitler.

The term ‘child pornography’ was in general use when Liddle was writing. The idea that ‘only’ viewing CSA images was not the same as child abuse, may not have been the majority position, but was certainly expressed by others at the time. As I said earlier, it is largely due to the work of the ‘joyless feminists’ rather than the fun type, that this has changed.

I’m assuming you enjoyed the letter from the peerless Jenni Murray regarding Liddle’s article and obviously expressed your sadness when she died.

The dead person can’t read the tweets. HTH.

I’m going to hazard a guess that @SadiraOfTyr didn’t claim Liddle was a paedophile when he was alive and would have possibly sued the arse off them.

His views were gross though.
I can remember people getting mad at the sort of "blokey" types fully supporting "trans rights" because they know a trans women/knew a bloke who transitioned to being a woman and therefore had loyalty to them even if it meant a bunch of nameless women were hurt. And then you get the very emotionally manipulative articles arguing that any disagreement is hurting real people so should be banned.

Likewise people that turn a blind eye to child abuse or rapists because they are a friend/play on the football team they support/are on the same side of politics/are a freedom fighter/are in the army.

Rod Liddle wasnt as bad as that but his views and jokes around child sexual abuse were gross. Him being dead doesn't make them less gross or mean they should be ignored. I wouldn't dance on his grave, but it's perfectly reasonable to criticise a dead persons views regardless of whether this hurts their family. I actually have a lot of space for people who disagree with me on gay rights, women's rights, immigration, foreign policy, history etc. There are lots of areas where I can disagree hugely with someone in one area and find common ground in another. But child sexual stuff is a red line. I don't think it should be seen as an agree to disagree issue and I don't think people with strange views on it should be accepted as allies in other areas. And I think it should be called out even if the person also said stuff I agree with. Even if they are dead.

Russell Brand

Uh?

I don't know what Sadira was claiming. But I don't think he was a paedophile. I do think he was someone who argued, in a joking but not really joking way, to downplay sexual exploitation of teenage children. I am not saying that should be illegal, free speech and all that, but they are the sorts of opinions that should be beyond the pale. Peter Tatchell is another one who, despite being very brave in protesting genuine discrimination against gay people in Russia, I would never want to be aligned with or express sympathy for. Because his views on paedophilia outweigh any other positive positions he took (and that's before he started supporting men in women's prisons etc). Of course there are some horrible people that I might end up sharing some views with. I'm not going to scrap those views just because a horrible person also thinks it. But it also doesn't change my mind about that person.

If it was someone you disagreed with (say a TRA) who wrote the same things he wrote you would probably (rightly) hold it as an example of their poor moral character (and there have been threads on people like that here. Many such cases unfortunately). It also reflects poorly on Liddle's character. Dead or otherwise.

If Peter Tatchell dropped dead tomorrow, I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit affected. I wouldn’t however begrudge people who knew him expressing their sadness, shock or whatever else they felt.

@BackToLurk
Agreed. I wouldn't mourn his passing, but I wouldn't be disrespectful either. I wouldn't be critical of the people mourning him. There's a time and a place for everything.